


Five Names

by mautadite



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Character Study, Explicit Sexual Content, Fantasizing, Light Dom/sub, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:53:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He stands amidst the pandemonium of the Lima Shatterdome, as far away from his father as possible while still in reach of his arm, and watches the approach of the fabled Stacker Pentecost.</p><p>
  <i>(Five names, over the years. Charles, Hansen, Chuck, ranger and...)</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Names

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stonestrewn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonestrewn/gifts).



> Here's to Ingrid for consistently being one of the best friends and best humans beings I know. Happy belated birthday sweetheart! I love you so so so much; thank you for being in my life. Here is some inappropriate porn.
> 
> Please read the warnings/tags. There's also a bit of impact play and breath play in there that didn't seem significant enough to tag.

**i.**

When he’s thirteen years old and meeting him for the first time, it’s ‘Charles’. He stands amidst the pandemonium of the Lima Shatterdome, as far away from his father as possible while still in reach of his arm, and watches the approach of the fabled Stacker Pentecost. Chuck thinks sourly that he doesn’t look like anything special; just another straight-laced tight-arsed military regurgitate, all starch stiff and done up in his blues, moustache so straight you could do arithmetic with it. He frowns. The click of Stacker’s shoes sounds echoingly through the low hum of noise.

He and Hercules talk quietly each to each for a few minutes, angling their heads away from Chuck. There’s nothing interesting to look at – the bays where the jaegers are located are still a few rooms over – and he can feeling strangers looking at him. He feels curiosity and pity and dismissiveness crawling over his skin like ants and Chuck just wants to burn it all away. 

Herc’s hand stretches and alights on his shoulder, and he shrugs it off immediately before tuning back in to their conversation. His father sighs.

“You’ve of course not yet had the pleasure. Stacker, meet my son. Chuck, this is Stacker Pentecost, one of the forerunners of the programme—”

“I know who he is,” Chuck mutters, saying it to his feet. He hears his father sigh again, but the younger pilot doesn’t say anything at all. Chuck might have thought that he’d left, except that he’s staring straight at his shiny black shoes and his reflection in them. He looks skinnier and paler than the boy in the mirror this morning.

Finally, he looks up, and almost immediately wishes that he didn’t. Stacker’s expression injects involuntary lead into his spine, straightening it out and pushing his shoulders back, though he’s yet to really meet the man’s eyes. Chuck scowls, but takes the big dark hand when it’s offered to him.

“Hello, Charles,” says Stacker Pentecost. His voice is not tinted with that shade of condescension that Chuck hates, but it makes his frown deepen nonetheless. The only person to ever call him Charles is dead now, and the only other person who might have had the right stands next to him like an aged mirror. Chuck feels the indignation rising like dust in his throat, but something about the look on Stacker’s face forces it back down, makes him choke on it.

Instead of the biting reply that he’d had planned, Chuck only pulls his hand away and mumbles, “Chuck is fine… no one calls me Charles. Sir.”

Stacker meets his eyes and nods, and again, he doesn’t patronise or coddle with the force of his gaze, unlike so many other adults. Chuck doesn’t know how to feel about that, so he concentrates on not feeling anything at all. He looks down at his sneakers. They’re a dingy white that’s going to grey, save for a splash of colour on the inner side of the left shoe where Chuck had drawn in a jaeger. He straightens further, pressing his feet together, suddenly ashamed of the colourful mech.

He’ll never know if Stacker Pentecost notices it. When he looks up again, the ranger is talking to his father, and in time, they begin to walk. Hercules gestures him along and Chuck goes, shoving his hands into his pockets and trailing in their wake.

~~~

**ii.**

During his time in the Academy, it’s ‘Hansen’.

That alone makes Chuck’s teeth clench, makes his blood hot enough to power a furnace. There are two other Hansens to whom he is irrevocably tied: the brothers that just can’t be beat. _Chuck_ is going to beat them; he’s going to be the best thing this programme’s ever crafted and the worst thing every belly-crawling sea monster will ever clap eyes on. He’s one of the youngest people to ever enter the Academy, and he’ll be the youngest to ever make Ranger. His will be the name on every lip that matters, and when it’s said, there’ll be no confounding it with the old-timers who came before. 

A gnawing voice inside whispers that he’s being a child; it’s only a name, and it’s standard for the instructors and higher-ups to refer to the cadets by their surnames. Perhaps he expected more, because Stacker is so close to Herc. Perhaps he wanted more. Chuck’s not just another candidate, and everyone knows it. But this, he never mentions to anyone, least of all to Stacker Pentecost. 

Chiefly because he can barely string two words together around the man.

Seeing Stacker for the first time after two years had been like a kick in the gut. Retired, and a Marshall now, he looks almost exactly the same, but with an extra layer of hardness, of cold efficiency wrapped around him. Rumours of sickness float around, but to see him bedecked from collar to heel, a paragon of the Corps, it seems absurd. Chuck remembers thinking that his uniform was a joke; now seeing him in it makes his throat close up and a red flush crawl all over his skin. The Marshall speaks; everyone listens. He gives an order; twelve people scramble all at once to see it done. Back then, he hadn’t seemed so tall, so broad, so completely extraordinary, and now Chuck can’t take a breath around him without feeling like a fool.

“Hansen,” Stacker will say, giving him a cursory nod as he passes by in the hallways, the Japanese girl a constant shade at his side, and Chuck will strangle out a greeting that he doesn’t hear and hurry to his room because he suddenly needs to sit down. How the _hell_ can everyone else manage to remain functional around him while Chuck turns into a useless pile of organs and fabric?

It’s just… a dumb teenage thing, all his hormones going haywire and the Marshall having whatever it is that specifically sets them off. Chuck knows it’s out of his control, but it only makes him angrier to be so powerless, to know that another human being can make him fumble and lose a step and blush all over without even reallly acknowledging him. Even worse that that person is a man, one of his future commanding officers, and his father’s oldest friend.

It’s enough to makes him hate himself a little if he thinks on it too much. 

So Chuck does his best not to think about it at all. He throws himself into his training; from the moment he, Herc and Scott land on Kodiak Island, he concentrates on running himself inches short of ragged, proving that he can take whatever they launch at him. He was born to pilot. Anyone who thinks he’s running on the Hansen name soon learns otherwise; he is neither his father nor his uncle. 

Chuck is steel, and he’ll let himself be layered and forged as many times as is needed.

~~~

**iii.**

After he leaves the Academy, it’s ‘Chuck’. Finally Chuck.

He’s sixteen when he graduates, and his father isn’t there for the ceremony. Chuck knows he wants to be but he’s halfway round the world, and has no choice in the matter. There’s a short message of congratulations on his phone that he doesn’t bother to reply to. Instead, it’s Stacker who slips in at the back of the hall as Chuck walks onto the stage to accept his award; Stacker who leads the polite applause among the other cadets who don’t like him or are jealous of him or both; Stacker who later claps him on the back with a, “Well done, Chuck” before he disappears, leaving Chuck to rub his palm against his thigh and cough shamefully into his cup.

Stacker who comes to his quarters early next morning when the Alaska dark is still thick, and delivers the news that makes the floor collapse beneath his feet. Chuck can feel his mouth rapidly drying up and all he can think for a second is _you careless old bastard_.

“As of the latest news we have, they’re both going to be fine,” the Marshall says, standing near the ladder of the bunk beds as Chuck looks down on him, knuckles going white against the sheets. He hears rather than feels himself release the breath he’d held captive in his lungs; his whole body is wooden. “Lucky Seven took heavy damage, but they managed to pull through and bring the kaiju down. We’ll be flying you out to Manila later today, and you should all be in Sydney’s Shatterdome before the week is out.”

Chuck nods stiffly. He knows he should say something, but his throat feel like it’s full of wool. There’s a sniffling noise in the corner as Max rouses, and trots out of his little basket.

“He wanted me to tell you,” Stacker continues, “and I knew you’d want to know as soon as possible.”

Managing another brisk nod, Chuck clears his throat.

“Yes, I… thank you, sir.”

“I’ll see you in a few hours.”

He leaves with that, shoes clicking briskly against the concrete. Chuck waits until the door is closed and he can no longer hear the footsteps echoing along the hallway before he slides down the ladder and lets Max climb into his lap and snuffle against his face. He’s drooling like a faucet as usual, and happily accepts Chuck’s gentle fingers scratching behind his ears and under his chin.

“Silly creature,” he mutters, kissing him on the crown. Together, soundlessly, they climb onto Herc’s bunk, as if they drifted through touch alone. He reaches up to drag his own blanket down. Max buries his face into Chuck’s chest; he is little, but very warm.

*

Months later, it is Max standing between them again as Striker Eureka is unveiled. Chuck can’t stop looking at her, the first of the Mark Vs, the jaeger that he’s going to pilot; at her sleek iron blades, her titanic fists, the palpable power in her chest launcher. He was practically raised in a cockpit, and he knows that here, he is going to feel right at home.

When he’s not looking at her, he glances at Herc, standing beside him with a face like scarred marble. The gash that creeps down his jaw onto his neck had needed seven stitches. Chuck still doesn’t know why his uncle was dismissed from the Corps after he helped save that city, why Herc won’t return his calls and refuses to even talk about him. Doesn’t know, but may soon find out. The Drift looms between them.

The Marshall stands a few paces away, watching. Chuck controls his shiver, straightens his back, and looks ahead, at the steel embodiment of his future.

~~~

**iv.**

In his dreams, it’s ‘ranger’.

He calls them dreams because it implies a certain helplessness on his part, as if he doesn’t purposefully get into this headspace, wait until he knows Herc won’t be around for a few hours, and then slide into bed with his cock in his hand and think about all the ways he’d like Stacker to fuck him. As if it makes it less weird or screwed up that he’s nineteen years old and the only person he’s interested in letting touch him is literally twice his age and will never want to.

Herc probably knows. Even that doesn’t deter him or shame him into stopping. Chuck had seen, as he’d known he eventually would, what Scott had done, but never acknowledges it, except to rid himself of what little guilt he felt for never bothering to keep in contact with his uncle. Perhaps it’s Herc’s gratitude for that which keeps him from bringing up anything he senses in the Drift of Chuck’s feelings for the Marshall. Perhaps not. Hercules and Chuck speak when they need to, fight when they don’t.

In his dreams, his father fades away. They’re back in Anchorage, and the Marshall summons Chuck to his quarters. Sometimes there’s a pretext; some accomplishment to be congratulated for, some crisis that only Chuck can help solve. Sometimes Stacker will simply pin him with that look that makes his knees turn liquid and say, “Strip, ranger.”

The Marshall rarely, if ever, loses his clothes. Instead, he waits until Chuck is naked and trying not to tremble before he beckons him forward with a finger. Just one finger. Thinking about his hands, large and dark, with their long tapered fingers and blunt nails is enough to make Chuck writhe desperately in his sheets. Stacker places a hand on his shoulder, and it slowly curls up and around to his neck while Chuck breathes harshly. The fingers nest and clutch in his hair, and he only has to tug once, almost too gently to be felt, before Chuck lets his knees give out and crumbles to the floor.

Sometimes he’ll get up, kneel on his bed, just to give himself that perspective of what it would be like. The position puts Stacker’s cock right in his face, thick and visibly tenting in his perfectly tailored pants, but the Marshall makes him ask for it, beg even, before he’ll take it out and let Chuck suck it. 

“You need to be specific, ranger,” he says, tightening his grip in Chuck’s short hair, pulling his head back so his throat is exposed. Chuck’s hands are fisted at his sides and his prick is so hard he wants to cry. “You could be down there to do anything. Scrub my floors. Shine my shoes.”

“Please,” Chuck gasps, chest heaving. “I want to suck you off.”

“You want to suck me off, _what_?”

Chuck can barely breathe, but he slows himself down long enough to let a touch of insolence into his voice, heat rising pre-emptively to his cheeks. 

“I want to suck you off, _Stacker_.”

He slaps him for that; right across the face. Chuck’s own hand doesn’t feel as heavy as he’d imagine, as sharp as he’d want it to be, but it’s what he gets. After the Marshall makes him apologise, twisting on his nipples, after Chuck’s said ‘sir’ so many times it’s slurring in his mouth and his cheeks are red with handprints, he finally unzips. Chuck’s never seen any penises other than his own and a few on the internet, but in his mind it’s smooth, brown, and just short of too large to fit into his mouth. Stacker makes it fit.

The Marshall always takes a long time to come; Chuck makes sure to drag it out, moaning around his cock, pressing his fingers hard into his own thighs so that he won’t touch anything he’s not supposed to, sucking thickly and letting the hand in his hair guide him as roughly or as gently as it likes. The other hand cups his jaw, rubbing against the stubble there in a way that makes Chuck tremble, all the while Stacker pistons his hips, faster and faster.

After the Marshall spills, he tucks himself away, pushes Chuck flat onto the floor, (Chuck lies prone against his sheets) grabs the lube, gets down on one knee and fingerfucks Chuck until his legs are shaking and he’s scrabbling on the ground. He presses his free hand against Chuck’s throat as he curls and works his fingers inside him relentlessly. Chuck doesn’t know if it’s possible to cry because something feels too good, but he always does. He comes sobbing so he doesn’t have to say his name, jerking himself so hard his back arches off the bed.

The dream – _fantasy_ – rarely varies; it hasn’t in years.

Later, in the shower, Chuck looks at his hands and the marks he left on himself. They are never deep enough, and fade within the night.

~~~

**v.**

Most of the time, it's nothing. Because if he's honest with himself, there are more days in a month than the number times Stacker refers to him by anything specific when addressing him. It’s _Mr. Hansen_ when that infamous temper is on the rise; _you_ when he’s really done something to fuck up; _kid_ on the one occasion Chuck can remember him making a joke. Otherwise, Chuck remains where he’s always been: in periphery, a weapon and an asset to be used. 

And that’s fine. The years haven’t cooled the inferno in him, but he’s gotten better at hiding it, never once expecting more than could be his due. He’s only a cog in the many wheels Stacker has to manage here in this half-life as the monsters get meaner, dead pilots come back to life and the world begins to end. This is the man who forms the centre, who secures them all, who can and will send him to his death if it means the lives of millions. 

He never once expected that Stacker would be going along with him.

Chuck’s eyes are still a little wet as he steps into Striker’s Conn Pod for the last time. The light is dim and there’s a faint smell of wet dog extant in the air. Max had snuck in after him after his bath last week, and he hadn’t the heart to lug him out immediately. Herc likes to say that he spoils the dog, as if he doesn’t too. They’d gotten him the week Chuck turned fifteen, and when he’d wanted to make Max their logo, there’d been no objection from his father. “So he’ll be with me all the time,” he’d said, mostly to himself, but his father had heard it in the Drift anyway. His father had heard everything in the Drift.

The Marshall strides in, and Chuck averts his gaze as the technicians work around them. Barring simulations during his time in the Academy, he’s never drifted with anyone other than his father, where there was a proven compatibility despite the ever-fluctuating rift between them. But Stacker had said that it would go well — _you are your father’s son_ — and Chuck has been quietly believing in him for as long as he can remember.

LOCCENT chimes in; they’re ready for the drop. The hull jerks and sways and they move as one to brace for it. Chuck doesn’t speak as they lock in, nor as Tendo’s voice counts them down for the neural handshake; just looks at the Marshall in the last moment. His tiny nod is returned before the ‘zero’.

*

The Drift is an immediate shock. Instead of the old, gruff, static familiarity of his father, it’s — 

_(hot; sweat is pouring down his face and the fire blazes and it — “…looks terrific, Charles! When dad gets home we can set it up in the backyard, what you do…” — “…say anything!” She laughs. “That’s what big sisters are…” — “…for you! I had to! She would have never forgiven me!” Herc clenches his fists, and the distance between them is thick enough to — touch, very light, on top of her head. His dark hand almost swallows her crown. She smiles up at him and he knows he’s made the — right, then ducks left, bringing the staff down in a line perpendicular to the other boy’s neck. It doesn’t touch, but the boy flinches anyway, and stumbles — “…back to the start, eh, Stacks?” Tamsin coughs, red spots appearing on her lips, and he moves — slowly, tortuously so, like he imagines he would, and he spreads his legs wider, fucking himself, grinding down, oh —“…my_ son _.”)_

— sharp, bright, cold; a blank slate. In the first few nanoseconds, Chuck slips, feels himself going too far with the unfamiliarity, but hauls himself upright before the connection can be lost. 

He glances across, filling up his lungs with air to steady himself. Striker Eureka shifts and sways as the helicopters lift and transport them, but Stacker is still. He looks larger and more powerful than usual, awash in the harsh light of the Pod, and Chuck can feel him clearly in his mind, one tall building in a city of men. His mouth is dry; he supposes he should say this now. They’re still moving through the air as he tries to figure out how.

“Marshall, sir, I…”

“I figured that out a long time ago as well,” Stacker interrupts. He’s keeping an eye on their movement, but turns to look at him, without a trace of mockery or disgust or condescension. His nod is curt, but gentle. “No need.”

Chuck swallows.

“Sir…”

“Do I need to make that an order?” Chuck closes his mouth briskly, and shakes his head. “Good. We’ve got an appointment to keep. If you want, we can talk about this later.”

It takes him a moment, but Chuck realises that Stacker is making a joke. He barks out a laugh, and it seems a little easier to breathe. He’s in an iron titan strapped with enough explosive power to reduce a city to rubble, but he feels lighter than air. LOCCENT hums in his ears as his mind pans and clears up; he can hear Tendo and his father checking in, the buzz of Mori and Becket in the background.

“Both neural handshakes at one hundred per cent,” Tendo says and Chuck smiles wordlessly. Stacker had been right.

“Of course I was,” the Marshall says, not looking at him. “I’m never wrong about my co-pilots.”

Chuck balances the weight of another name; finds it easy to carry. The choppers let go, and the Pacific rushes up to meet them. 

They drift just fine.


End file.
